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Video on my thoughts: is it expensive to eat healthy?

05-20-2013, 03:30 PM

Hey guys! Sharing this video I made with you all.
Hope to help some of you decide if it's affordable to eat healthy.
This topic comes up a lot when I have conversations with others about a healthy lifestyle, eating healthy, organic food, etc etc. I've had personal experiences that showed me that I'm really not spending much money compared to others who don't eat very natural, so I wanted to put this thought out there to share with people who think eating healthy is expensive.

Compared to eating whatever constitutes not healthy, hell yeah. I spent $60 at shoprite last night, and got some milk and eggs and meat for a work-week's worth of dinners for one person, some jugs of water.

If I wanted the garbage, I could have spent about $20 on the same things of lower quality.

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

Jack london, "Before Adam"

Comment

The clone and hormone immersion meat, for example, is about half the price where I shop, or less. The tormented clone milk and cheese or eggs are about 30% the cost of the human (I call it "neo-kosher") variety, at shop-rite round here.

If you want your own sauces and shit, it goes way up. You can pay about a dollar for whatever corn syrup trash they sell as Barbecue and Ketchup or asian sauces or whatever; the healthy kind you have to make from scratch and is like a $20 investment for all that stuff, though you do end up making a lot of it by buying the ingredients.

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

Jack london, "Before Adam"

Comment

ok I am one minute in, and I hear you on the overall health argument of it- obviously if you ARE healthy, you save money compared to people who take some kind of over-the-counter symptom-relief thing daily and then get diabetes and shit.

But, well for one- you can eat healthy all you want, but you still live in a radioactive emission immersion of electro-magnetic satellite-broadcasted wavelengths, so, you will probably get cancer anyway. Also you have to share the roads with the zoloft and xanex and adderall crowd, and they are as likely to kill or maim a healthy driver as an unhealthy one.

It's just a question of value- would you rather have human nourishment and see less movies and go shopping for bullshit less, or, have all of the class-indicator trappings of debt-accumulated modern consumer status, but eat laboratory abominations and diseased clones?

For me it's like an ethics of spitefulness thing- me and the wife don't buy any products from companies that do animal testing, all our meat and such is free range and all.

Again for the sake of simplicity I just say, "We keep neo-kosher."

"Ah, those endless forests, and their horror-haunted gloom! For what eternities have I wandered through them, a timid, hunted creature, starting at the least sound, frightened of my own shadow, keyed-up, ever alert and vigilant, ready on the instant to dash away in mad flight for my life. For I was the prey of all manner of fierce life that dwelt in the forest, and it was in ecstasies of fear that I fled before the hunting monsters."

Jack london, "Before Adam"

Comment

I agree that spending a little extra to eat right can help save in other aspects of life such as health expenses. One addition: I like to go out of my way to remove some luxuries from my life. In the end, the extra effort evens out and my body/mind find another efficient way of doing something just as well with out costly luxuries.

As for the video, maybe you could be cautious in prescribing healthy foods as the ticket to a better appearance, because though food is a big part of it, it's not the only factor. Diet is not the be-all-end-all of a healthy and fulfilled life.

(and just for fun)
Meet Randall, the self-fulfilled local Adonis with a soft spot for animal shelters and soup kitchens.
Now, meet Craig, the malcontent skinny-fat Scrooge who demoralizes those who do not ascribe to his level of cynicism. He also kicks cans at birds.

There are "Randall"s who eat CW and sit at the top of Maslow's pyramid.
There are "Craig"s who consider themselves health-conscious eaters and are serial-article-forwarders-to-work-emails.

Throughout the world, you'll meet Randalls who should be named Craig and Craigs whould should be name Randall, based on what they eat.

TL,DR: Food isn't the only healthy thing.

Comment

I agree that eating healthy can save you enough money in other areas to make the cost of organic, grass fed everything even out.

In addition to the things you mentioned of spending less on health care and personal care products, I also find that when I am eating nourishing food I don't need to eat as often. I eat one main meal and maybe a bite in the morning. So I'm not spending money eating every three hours to keep my blood sugar from crashing like CW folks.

Also the urge to snack is just about gone. Snack food is expensive for how little you get (e.g. a bag of potato chips) The extra little non-food items are the expensive stuff like sodas. Expensive in terms of minimal nutrition per dollar. And I'm not feeling like drinking alcohol much anymore. Another high mark up item.

I'm also eating at home more often and less in restaurants which cuts costs.

Primal also encourages people to make use of the bones turning them into delicious and nutritious broth instead of tossing them. Put the broth with some leftover veggies and you have a great soup made out of stuff that would have otherwise gone down the garbage disposal.

Comment

Snack food is expensive for how little you get (e.g. a bag of potato chips)

I forget where I saw it, but there was a gallery of breakfast cereal bags after being crushed and each one contained no more than 1-2 inches of powder on the bottom which kinda puts a damper on the $5 price tag.

Comment

I forget where I saw it, but there was a gallery of breakfast cereal bags after being crushed and each one contained no more than 1-2 inches of powder on the bottom which kinda puts a damper on the $5 price tag.

Yep, and goes a long way toward explaining why you are starving again shortly after a big bowl of it.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that if you are eating right and are well nourished, you don't need to spend a bunch of money on supplements.

Comment

ok I am one minute in, and I hear you on the overall health argument of it- obviously if you ARE healthy, you save money compared to people who take some kind of over-the-counter symptom-relief thing daily and then get diabetes and shit.

But, well for one- you can eat healthy all you want, but you still live in a radioactive emission immersion of electro-magnetic satellite-broadcasted wavelengths, so, you will probably get cancer anyway. Also you have to share the roads with the zoloft and xanex and adderall crowd, and they are as likely to kill or maim a healthy driver as an unhealthy one.

It's just a question of value- would you rather have human nourishment and see less movies and go shopping for bullshit less, or, have all of the class-indicator trappings of debt-accumulated modern consumer status, but eat laboratory abominations and diseased clones?

For me it's like an ethics of spitefulness thing- me and the wife don't buy any products from companies that do animal testing, all our meat and such is free range and all.

Again for the sake of simplicity I just say, "We keep neo-kosher."

Yes, very true. It's not all in nutrition. Breathing in exhaust from cars and trucks is so harmful too, all the pollution in the air, & RADIATION. But if we can have control over some aspect of our health then WHY NOT? Why not AT LEAST diminish our health risks? you know?

Comment

I agree that spending a little extra to eat right can help save in other aspects of life such as health expenses. One addition: I like to go out of my way to remove some luxuries from my life. In the end, the extra effort evens out and my body/mind find another efficient way of doing something just as well with out costly luxuries.

As for the video, maybe you could be cautious in prescribing healthy foods as the ticket to a better appearance, because though food is a big part of it, it's not the only factor. Diet is not the be-all-end-all of a healthy and fulfilled life.

(and just for fun)
Meet Randall, the self-fulfilled local Adonis with a soft spot for animal shelters and soup kitchens.
Now, meet Craig, the malcontent skinny-fat Scrooge who demoralizes those who do not ascribe to his level of cynicism. He also kicks cans at birds.

There are "Randall"s who eat CW and sit at the top of Maslow's pyramid.
There are "Craig"s who consider themselves health-conscious eaters and are serial-article-forwarders-to-work-emails.

Throughout the world, you'll meet Randalls who should be named Craig and Craigs whould should be name Randall, based on what they eat.

TL,DR: Food isn't the only healthy thing.

Thanks for bringing that up about my video! I definitely did not make it clear that healthy food is not an ultimatum for healing of all illness and better appearance. Your surroundings play a big role, your social life, your internal thoughts, and getting enough primal movement.

Comment

I agree that eating healthy can save you enough money in other areas to make the cost of organic, grass fed everything even out.

In addition to the things you mentioned of spending less on health care and personal care products, I also find that when I am eating nourishing food I don't need to eat as often. I eat one main meal and maybe a bite in the morning. So I'm not spending money eating every three hours to keep my blood sugar from crashing like CW folks.

Also the urge to snack is just about gone. Snack food is expensive for how little you get (e.g. a bag of potato chips) The extra little non-food items are the expensive stuff like sodas. Expensive in terms of minimal nutrition per dollar. And I'm not feeling like drinking alcohol much anymore. Another high mark up item.

I'm also eating at home more often and less in restaurants which cuts costs.

Primal also encourages people to make use of the bones turning them into delicious and nutritious broth instead of tossing them. Put the broth with some leftover veggies and you have a great soup made out of stuff that would have otherwise gone down the garbage disposal.

yes, forgot to include that! I actually thought of that right before I read your comment It's so true! You don't need to be snacking as much, or getting frustrated that you JUST ATE and now you have to buy something else because you are so hungry from the fast digesting, high glycemic processed low quality food.

Comment

In the short run, yes, it's more expensive to eat healthy - at least in the city where I live. It's also more labor intensive.

Labor. Since I used to order pizza once a week, and I usually had a po'boy once a week, I now cook two more meals per week than I used to do. I also make bone broth which I never did before primal. Instead of shopping once every three weeks on whatever day I wanted at basically one or two grocery stores, I now have to source different things at different venues - online, farmers markets, and grocery stores. The two farmers markets here that are logistically sane are on Tuesday and Saturday - this means that I can't just run out of something and head over to get it; I have to do that on certain days.

Money. Absolutely. Whenever I go into a regular grocery store for paper products, I'm reminded of how cheap protein used to be for me. I still see CAFO pork and chicken for less than $2/lb on a regular basis. The cheapest protein by far to me now is chicken which gets to run around and retain their beaks for their whole lives and that's $3/lb. Every other source of protein is much higher.

For urban and maybe suburban dwellers, it seems clear to me that one horrifying thing about the disparity between affluence and poverty is quality of food. And offal isn't the answer. The nose to tail movement took care of that, and even tongue, heart, liver, etc. is expensive if from a pastured animal. Perhaps rural poor can mitigate this by raising some of their own food.

So, yes. Everything I eat now is 30-100% more expensive than what I was eating a year ago. It's mitigated only by the $100/month I save by not ordering pizza every week.

As to the long run, re: health care costs, I don't know. I'll report back when I'm 80.

"Right is right, even if no one is doing it; wrong is wrong, even if everyone is doing it." - St. Augustine

Comment

I spend a lot on food and I cook a lot more but I have found that I actually enjoy cooking. Being in the kitchen gives me a little alone time, if you know what I mean. Good for my mental health and better for the relationship.